Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990 TAG: 9005010324
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The federal law governing tax-exempt organizations prohibits them from participating in political campaigns, but the plaintiffs asserted that the IRS "has consistently overlooked these violations."
The appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, dismissed the suit last year, saying that the plaintiffs did not have "standing" to bring the case, either as clergy, as taxpayers, as voters or as "competitive advocates." Standing is the legal doctrine that requires that those challenging a policy not simply disagree with it but demonstrate that they are suffering a concrete injury as a result.
In asking the court to hear the case, the Abortion Rights Mobilization said that by giving the church tax exempt status, "the IRS has granted the church the equivalent of a cash subsidy for partisan political activity."
"This presents one of the greatest dangers the First Amendment was designed to prevent: a mutually supportive relationship between government and a particular religion," the group said.
The Bush administration, opposing Supreme Court review in Abortion Rights Mobilization vs. United States Catholic Conference, said the groups' "allegations reduce to a complaint that the government is not properly enforcing the law against another taxpayer" - a claim that, under the court's precedents, is not an adequate basis for bringing suit.
In another ruling Monday, state officials and private lawyers gained new powers to try to break up corporate mergers as the court ruled unanimously that California may seek to split up the merger of the Lucky and Alpha-Beta supermarket chains if it will hurt consumers.
Legal experts said the ruling probably means that Lucky, the state's largest supermarket chain, and Alpha-Beta, the number four chain, will continue to operate as competitors.
If the two were allowed to merge into one powerful supermarket chain, consumers could have faced $200 million a year in higher prices for groceries, state attorneys contended. The corporate owners of Alpha-Beta have contended that the merger would save consumers $50 million a year.
Although the two chains have continued independent operations, the merger was approved two years ago by the Federal Trade Commission. The following year, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that state officials had no right to contest the merger.
But under Monday's ruling, state lawyers may go to federal court in Los Angeles and show that the merger may "lessen competition" in the grocery business. If they can prove that - and most experts think they can - the merger could be dissolved.
On a broader level, Monday's decision gives further indication that the "merger mania" of the 1980s has ended.
The collapse of the junk bond market has made it harder for corporate raiders to raise enough funds to buy other companies. New state laws have made it more difficult for outsiders to take control of a home-state company. And now the Supreme Court has given aggressive state attorneys and other interested parties the power to break up mergers that violate federal anti-trust laws because they might lessen competition.
by CNB